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The CECMOL forum 2014 will take place Sept. 2-4 at the Kirin Parkview Hotel in Shenzhen, China on. This is the first major international forum in China dedicated to the vapor market. Experts will discuss issues such as public policy, standardization, R&D and manufacturing.

This forum is an opportunity for visitors to meet China’s major e-cigarette and e-liquid manufacturers and major players in the global vapor industry. Among other things, visitors will learn more how the standards of safety, technologies, and production processes in China correspond with the standards of other regions.

The Chinese consumer market is gradually opening to the e-cigarette industry and may one day become the biggest vapor market in the world.

Japan Tobacco reported revenue of ¥556.4 billion ($5.4 billion) in the first quarter of 2014, compared with revenue of ¥547.9 billion in the comparable 2013 quarter. The company made an adjusted operating profit of ¥148.9 billion during the three months, compared with ¥151.4 billion a year earlier.

The revenue increase was driven by a robust price mix in the company’s international tobacco business and the depreciation of the Japanese yen against the U.S. dollar, despite the temporary slowdown in JT’s domestic business following Japan’s April consumption tax increase. The price mix of the international tobacco business was not enough to prevent the 2.8 percent decline in adjusted operating profit however.

“Our international tobacco business continued to demonstrate solid earnings growth, underpinned by enhanced brand equity and pricing opportunities,” said Mitsuomi Koizumi, president and CEO of JT. “This underlines the strength of our business fundamentals at a time when the industry is contracting.

“In Japan, after the temporary slowdown caused by the April VAT hike, Mevius is once again driving our growth in market share. Although the overall business environment remains challenging, I firmly believe we can achieve the targets set out in our business plan 2014.”

PDL Cigarette Papers has inaugurated a new biomass boiler at its Papeteries des Vosges (PDV) site in Laval-sur-Vologne, France.

With 6.5 MW of power, the boiler can produce up to 10 tons of steam per hour and will supply enough steam to meet more than 50 percent of the PDV’s demands. The rest will be provided by two gas boilers which have been operating since December 2013.

The new boiler comprises a wood storage facility that can hold up to 1,000 cubic meters of wood, allowing it to run on its own for 3.7 days. Each year it will be supplied with 20,000 tons of untreated and unfinished wood, wood chips and residue from sawmills, including bark. All wood will be sourced from local industries.

Using this renewable energy will reduce the firm’s carbon dioxide output by 8,000 tons per year. The project cost €8 million ($10.9 million), € 2.3 million of which was provided by the French Agency for Environment and Energy Management.

The construction of this new wood-fueled boiler is in keeping with PDL Cigarette Papers’ sustainable development approach and energy conservation efforts, which have been in place for several years now.

“Our new biomass boiler means that we can honor our sustainable-development commitments while monitoring the changes in energy prices, therefore reducing costs as well as our carbon footprint,” says Bruno Delesque, PDL Cigarette Papers’ sales and marketing director. “Prior to this, Papeteries des Vosges sourced its steam from the neighboring industrial site, which operated on natural gas. Using wood seemed to be an optimal solution as a source of renewable energy.”

In January 2013, PDL Cigarette Papers started a biomass boiler at its Papeteries du Léman facility. The investment has decreased greenhouse gas emissions by 32 percent over the year in comparison with 2012.

This story, provided by Iggesund Paperboard, has only a paper-thin connection to tobacco, but it provides TR with an opportunity to show support for that great tobacco-producing nation, Brazil, as it kicks off the World Cup finals today.

Apparently, the Taittinger champagne house is supplying the official champagne for this year’s World Cup. The company has developed a limited-edition Brut Réserve NV and a gift carton especially for the competition.

“The gift carton is a version of the packaging that won Carton of the Year award in 2012 at the Europe-wide ProCarton/ECMA packaging awards,” said an Iggesund press note. “The winning carton was decorated with round holographic effects representing champagne bubbles. In the new World Cup version, these bubbles have been transformed into beautiful holographic footballs.

“The World Cup gift carton is made of Iggesund Paperboard’s Incada 235 g/m2 paperboard, and the conversion is by Le Sanglier, which specializes in gift cartons for champagne. The foil lamination is by API. Even the bottle is specially produced for the event, with the World Cup trophy depicted on a gold label.

“Taittinger is one of only a few champagne producers still being run by the family whose name is on the label. Their champagnes are characterized by a dominant note of chardonnay, which contributes to the elegance and sophistication.”

“It’s a momentous occasion for us to be associated with such a major event as the football World Cup,” said Clovis Taittinger, who is the company’s export director. “We’ve used the latest in both printing technology and 3D printing to create both the unique bottle and the carton.”

When the final is played at Maracanã Stadium on July 13, president, Pierre Emanuel Taittinger, will be present to ensure that, when the victors are crowned, the bubbles really flow.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. will be producing Vuse digital vapor cigarettes in Tobaccoville, North Carolina, USA, for R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. under a services agreement between the two companies. The firm will invest millions of dollars in high-speed e-cigarette manufacturing equipment and create 200 full-time manufacturing over the next four years.

“Vuse is a game-changing product and a tangible demonstration of our companies’ mission to transform the tobacco industry,” said Susan M. Cameron, president and CEO of Reynolds American Inc., the parent company of both R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co.

“We need additional production capacity for Vuse to support the national roll-out of the brand, and the highly trained workforce here in our home state of North Carolina made it the perfect choice for our expansion location,” Cameron said.

Cameron said that Vuse is the top-selling vapor cigarette in Colorado and Utah, the two states in which it has broad distribution and full marketing support. A national roll-out of Vuse will begin this summer.

Hiring for the new full-time manufacturing positions will begin this summer and extend over the next four years. Installation of the new-generation equipment, too, will begin this summer.

Currently, production of Vuse cartridges and other components is done for R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. at a contractor’s facility in Kansas. Cameron said that both the existing facility and the new equipment will be needed for the foreseeable future to meet anticipated market demand for Vuse.

It is quite literally “any day now” that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says it will release its proposal for the regulation of e-cigarettes, according to a spokesperson for the FDA. The rules could change the landscape of the tobacco and vapor industries.

The FDA will most likely ban sales to those under 18, set product standards, require companies to disclose e-juice ingredients and place health warnings on packaging and advertisements. The FDA will also decide whether there will be a grandfather date for products that are currently on the market and what it might be, in addition to proposing rules on advertising, sponsorships, Internet sales limitations and child-proof packaging requirements.

Last Friday, a trade-industry group was set to post a leaked copy of the impending FDA draft regulation for e-cigarettes on its website, but in a classy move, the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association (TVECA) changed pace on its plans to release the full report today, stating that it decided not to go ahead with formally releasing the document following informal discussions with the FDA on Friday. “[W]e all decided that [it would be] in the best interest of the regulatory process, as well as the industry and the public, not to post the document on Tuesday,” TVECA explained in a brief note on its website.

The posted title document on the TVECA homepage indicated that the FDA will classify e-cigs as “Deeming Tobacco Products to be Subject to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, as Amended by the Family Smoking Prevention and Control Act; Regulations on the Sale and Distribution of Tobacco Products and Required Warning Statements for Tobacco Products.”

The FDA Center for Tobacco Products—which completed a three-day meeting Friday with its scientific advisory committee on topics of nicotine addiction, population modeling and evaluating proposed modified-risk tobacco products—was quick to respond.

“The FDA has not issued its proposed rule regarding what additional tobacco products should be regulated by the agency,” it reaffirmed in a statement. “We are aware that the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association has indicated publicly that they have a copy of our proposal. The proposal is still in draft form and under review. As a matter of policy, the FDA does not share draft rules with outside groups while a rule is still under review.”

The agency has had e-cigarettes on its agenda for years, but finally sent its draft proposal of rules to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) last fall; action was further delayed by the partial government shutdown. The document was still with the OMB as of last month.